Evaluating the Throughput of Real-time Distance Education Services Supported by a Mobile Ad Hoc Network

Abstract

Tele-education went from being an option to becoming a necessity given the current public health problems. Due to this, the educational sector has included blended courses as part of its training offer. Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) will therefore, become an important resource to work, under this class format, with students outside the classroom, in accordance with the standards recommended inside a university campus. MANETs require certain parameters that ensure the quality of communications and identify the factors that influence Quality of Service (QoS). The purpose of this study is to determine the factors that affect the quality of communications in a tele-education environment. For this purpose, the QoS of a MANET supporting a real-time video streaming is evaluated based on throughput. As a result, the main factors that directly or indirectly affect the operation of the network could be identified, which may help in making decisions regarding aspects such as the number of nodes and the node mobility speed. Moreover, the versatility and scalability of the MANET was proven, as when the number of nodes went from 5 to 10, throughput increased by 14 %. This also occurred with the transmission rate factor when the video was streamed in a channel with a variable bitrate (64–4096 kbps).